Tuesday at the Table

It's not often you find hubby in the kitchen preparing food. Oh he's great at stirring sauces and risotto on demand, bakes the occasional batch of cookies, and comes running when I yell, "I need you!" But in general, he's off doing other things while I cook, returning promptly when the meal or whatever is ready. So imagine my surprise when I returned from errands on Saturday, amazing aromas greeting me at the door, and hubby working away making sausages!

Some of you may remember me telling about hubby's yearning for the sausage recipe his family used when he was a child, and how he finally got ahold of it last summer. For Christmas, I had given him a meat grinder and sausage stuffing attachment that works on our KitchenAid mixer, and he was finally getting around to trying it out!

Laying on one counter were, uh, sausage-casings (kinda gross). He explained to me how they were packaged in salt, and you had to soak them in water for 30 minutes before using.

And lucky for me, he was just loading up another batch of casings and filling, so I could see the process in motion (also kind of gross).

Just for the record, he was moderately satisfied with his result (though I was immensely impressed!). Seems like it's easy to get air bubbles in the links, and also, though tasty, the final product was a little blah. The only seasoning in his recipe is salt and pepper and garlic, so next time he'll try a different recipe, trying to get something more interesting, flavor-wise. But they cooked up great, so I see real possibilities here. He even tried his hand at smoking some. And though the smoke flavor didn't really shine through, it's a first step in figuring it all out.

You go hubby!